Description: "The book of Job raises stark questions about the meaning of innocent suffering and the relationship of the human to the divine, yet it is also one of the Bible's most obscure and paradoxical books. Mark Larrimore provides a panoramic history of this remarkable book, traversing centuries and traditions to examine how Job's trials and his challenge to God have been used and understood in diverse contexts, from commentary and liturgy to philosophy and art. Larrimore traces Job's reception by figures such as Gregory the Great, William Blake, and Elie Wiesel, and reveals how Job has come to be viewed as the Bible's answer to the problem of evil and the perennial question of why a God who supposedly loves justice permits bad things to happen to good people." --
Brief description: Mark Larrimore directs the Religious Studies Program at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts. He is the editor of The Problem of Evil: A Reader and the coeditor of The German Invention of Race.
Review Quotes: "A superb general survey of the multiple uses of this remarkable book. The very multiplicity of those readings and performative uses, which could make work difficult for conventional biblical scholars, becomes grist for Larrimore's mill, and offers windows on Job's broader impact."--David B. Burrell, author of Deconstructing Theodicy: Why Job Has Nothing to Say to the Puzzle of Suffering